Monday, September 29, 2014

“Eschatology” is a Greek word meaning “the science of the
end.” In ancient times, it used to be popular with theologians, but today
it seems to have picked up interest to describe various kinds of
catastrophes which could happen in the future. Things like giant
asteroids falling on the Earth or, in the far future, the sun becoming
so bright that it will cause the oceans to evaporate and wipe out all
life.

Now, if eschatology means big, rapid and irreversible
changes, you could argue that we’re going through a full-fledged
eschatological event right now. It is a mineral eschatology caused by
humans. Gigantic amounts of minerals have been extracted, processed, and
dispersed in the atmosphere, in the oceans, and in the ground. It took
hundreds of millions of years to create the ores we have destroyed in a
few centuries. Hundreds of millions of years will be needed to recreate
them – if indeed that will ever happen. The Earth is not any more what
it used to be when humans first appeared on it, and it will never be the
same again.

It looks like we’ve built a spaceship called
eschatology that’s transporting us to an alien planet on a one-way trip.
A planet hotter than the one we are used to living on because of the
greenhouse gases generated by the mining and the burning of fossil
carbon. A planet with many characteristics we might find very
unpleasant: from the flooding caused by the melting of land glaciers, to
the persistent pollution caused by the heavy metals and radioactive
minerals we’ve dispersed everywhere. But perhaps the greatest difference
is that in this new planet we won't find any more of the rich mineral
ores which have provided us with energy and resources we used to build
our industrial civilization.

We may be able to adapt to a
hotter planet, although that could mean enormous suffering for
humankind. Within limits, we can also clean up the pollution we have
generated. But how to live in a planet without cheap mineral resources?

It is true that minerals are never destroyed – so they will
still be there and, in part, could be recovered from industrial waste.
But, in the long run, in order to keep mining we would need to mine the
undifferentiated crust, and that would be unthinkably expensive in term
of the energy required. To say nothing of the disaster it would be in
terms of pollution. The essence of the eschatological event we are
living in is that the time of mining is almost over, at least in the
form we have known it for centuries. That is, from miners with their
picks and helmets in deep underground tunnels.

But if
eschatology means the end of something, it may also mean the beginning
of something else. If mining is heading to an end, we can still have
minerals if we are willing to change the wasteful and inefficient ways
we’ve been using to get them. We must close the exploitation cycle, and
completely recycle what we use. It is possible, but it needs energy –
much more than we needed to mine pristine ores. This energy cannot come
from fossil carbon: that would simply accelerate depletion and worsen
the climate problem. We need clean and inexhaustible energy: mainly sun
and wind.

It is unlikely that this energy will ever be so
cheap and abundant as the energy that was provided by fossil fuels at
the beginning of their exploitation cycle; so, we'll need to use it
wisely. We'll need to be much more efficient than we are today: we'll
need to create more durable industrial products, use energy carefully
and substitute rare minerals with ones more common in the Earth's crust.

Clean energy, recycling, and efficiency. This set of
strategies is our ticket for survival in this interplanetary trip. In
the end, spaceship Eschatology could give us a chance to abandon the
ever-growing and never happy civilization of today and create a new
civilization which could have enough wisdom to live and prosper on what
is available and no more.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

With this post, I am continuing the exploration of the narrative approach to understanding the future, in particular about the effects of climate change (see here, and here). Here, I am reproposing a complete Cli-Fi short story that was originally published on this blog in 2012.

The Earth Orbital Outpost is pleased to report to Galactic Command that
the eradication of the creatures termed "humans" inhabiting the planet
known as "Earth" is proceeding according to plans. The rapid warming of
the planet obtained by the injection of large amounts of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere is expected to wipe out most large vertebrates
within 40-50 planetary revolutions around the parent star. The planet
will be ready for colonization by our species in a few thousand years;
when the ecosystem will have been restored.

- The original (1st level) plan

Planet Earth was the object of several preliminary explorations before
being selected as suitable for colonization. Upon reaching this
decision, the Earth Orbital Outpost was set up with the purpose of
facilitating the colonization task. The Outpost proceeded to study the
planet, finding that it is dominated by a species, known as "humans",
which has appropriated most of the planetary ecosystem productivity.
Individually, humans turned out to be highly intelligent and it was soon
clear that the species poses an important obstacle to colonization. A
necessary step for colonization was therefore their eradication. The
decision was reached also upon the consideration that, if left to
themselves, humans were likely to reach a technological level
sufficiently high to become a nuisance at the Galactic scale.

Several plans were developed to carry out the eradication program. It
soon became clear that sterilization with neutron beams, carried out by
the Galactic star fleet, was possible but expensive and, besides, humans
were rapidly reaching a technological level sufficient to produce a
significant opposition. Instead, it was found that humans could be
eradicated at a much lower cost by warming the planet at temperatures
high enough to make their survival impossible. That could be
accomplished by exploiting the human habit of burning fossil carbon
materials in order to obtain energy. According to initial observations
carried out about a hundred revolutions ago, just letting humans to
themselves would lead them to inject in the atmosphere sufficient
amounts of greenhouse gases to cause a warming intense enough to destroy
most large vertebrates.

In previous reports, we were pleased to describe that the plan was
working. 50 revolutions ago, the concentration of greenhouse gases in
the Earth's atmosphere had already picked up a trend of rapid growth and
it was calculated that it would lead to the collapse of the ecosystem
in less than a hundred revolutions. However, as mentioned earlier on,
humans turned out to be remarkably intelligent and the brightest of them
were able to identify and understand the ongoing process (that they
usually referred to as "global warming.") Humans built up a
sophisticated planetary monitoring system and created theoretical models
of the atmosphere. At that point, they embarked in a planet-wide effort
to stop global warming by curbing fossil carbon burning and deploying
non-carbon based energy sources.

Having observed this development, it was necessary to alter the original
plan and intervene more directly in the eradication task, although
still doing an effort to avoid the enormous costs involved in deploying
the Galactic fleet.

- The 2nd level plan

Stopping humans from taking measures to avoid destroying themselves
turned out to require a quite modest effort - completely within the
resources available to the Earth Orbital Outpost. This result may be
surprising and, indeed, some members of the Galactic Command had
expressed doubt on being able to convince humans - individually very
intelligent - to continue actting in ways that were leading to their
destruction. Nevertheless, we succeeded in accomplishing this task.

The key element of our action has been the study and the exploitation of
the human information network, that they call "the Web." It is a
sophisticated planet-wide information system that has been fundamental
for humans in developing their understanding of climate and diffusing
this knowledge with their decision makers. However, we found fundamental
flaws in the functioning of this network.

In particular, we found that the network is dominated by "super-nodes"
which show a higher level of connectivity than most nodes. These
super-nodes are called by humans "media" and sometimes "mainstream
media". Surprisingly, we found that the supernodes are managed by humans
who are quite unable to understand the basic elements of the
functioning of the Earth's ecosphere. Even more surprisingly, we found
that the humans in charge of these media nodes make no effort whatsoever
to check that the information they diffuse corresponds to physical
reality.

We also found that the humans in charge of managing the media supernodes
are easily influenced by other groups of humans which are called
"lobbies," whose role is not easily understood by us. We believe it has
something to do with the abnormal interest of humans in a virtual entity
that they have created and that they refer to as "money". Although the
characteristics of this entity are obscure to us, it seems that humans
(especially males) care about being associated with large amounts of
this virtual entity and this, in turn, seems to have something to do
with the behavior of human females. In any case, we were able to
penetrate the human computing centers which produce this "money" and
appropriate large amounts of it for our purposes.

In practice, it was sufficient for the Earth Orbital Outpost to take
control of a small numbers of leading human individuals; whom we refer
to as "avatars." This task was accomplished mainly by our control of
large amounts of the above mentioned "money" entity. Using money, the
takeover of these minds turned out to be extremely easy: we found little
resistence on their part and no evidence that our operation was
detected by other humans. Our avatars carried out several tasks, mainly
providing the media super-nodes with fake data that contradicted the
results of the previous scientific investigation on the degradation of
the ecosystem.

A special operation that turned out to be extremely successful was to
break into the database of one of their best scientific organizations
(called by humans "climate research unit") and diffusing internal data
exchanges all over the network. This operation generated considerable
confusion among humans as it highlighted several uncertainties in the
research; something typical of scientific investigation but that,
apparently, most of them are not familiar with.

Assessment of the present situation

The takeover of the human information system (the "Web") by our human
avatars was completely successful and we have been able to turn it into
an instrument for our purposes. We are pleased to report that most human
leaders have been turned into avatars under our direct control or are
completely confused about the issue of global warming. It has been
possible to relegate the discussion on this theme to only some minor
clusters of the information network. All attempts carried out by humans
to diffuse it outside these clusters are met by aggressive denial
(humans turn out to be extremely aggressive for reasons that to us
appear futile).

As a consequence of our takeover of the information network, all
attempts of humans to stop the ecosystem destruction have been halted
and appear unlikely to be restarted any time soon. The amount of
greenhouse gases being emitted in the Earth's atmosphere keeps
increasing. That is creating a rapid rise of temperatures, as confirmed
by the recent observation of the near complete melting of the North Pole
ice cap, a planetary feature that had been existing for several million
years of planetary history.

It is clear that the Earth's system is heading towards a tipping point
where rising temperatures will trigger a series of phenomena which will
lead to runaway warming and to the total collapse of the ecosystem, even
without further human generation of greenhouse gases. We have been
monitoring the system evolution using climate modeling programs
developed by humans, which turned out to be very sophisticated.
According to these models, the tipping point could have been already
reached or, in any case, will be reached within a few planetary
revolutions. Therefore, we expect that the eradication of the human
species could be fully accomplished within a few tens of revolutions.

Recent developments and recommendations for the future

Even though the Earth's climate tipping point is likely to have been
reached, humans could still, theoretically, react with various
countermeasures, such as restarting with the phasing out of fossil
carbon burning, deploying non carbon energy sources, shielding the Earth
from solar radiation, and so forth. In order to succeed, however,
humans need first to regain control of the planetary information system.
Our avatars on the planet report ongoing human efforts in this sense,
perhaps triggered by
the observation of the melting of the North Pole ice cap.

Given these recent developments, the coming planetary revolutions will
be critical for the success of the human eradication plan. The Earth
Orbital Outpost will keep the situation under strict and continuous
monitoring. We do expect difficulties, in particular with our avatars.
Their physical integrity cannot be guaranteed if their role in the
eradication plan is discovered by humans not under our control.
Nevertheless, they have done their job and their loss will not change
the rapid evolution of the Earth's climate system.

Assuming that things continue to move according to plans, planet Earth
will soon be free of humans and of most large vertebrates that could be a
nuisance for colonization. We shall therefore proceed with the second
part of the plan, which consists in cooling down the planet by deploying
space mirrors. Subsequently, natural processes will re-absorb
greenhouse gases and restore the planetary ecosystem in about one
thousand planetary revolutions. At this point, the planet will be ready
for colonization by our species. Ships with colonists are expected to
arrive in about ten thousand revolutions from now. Then, a new planet
will be added to our Galactic civilization!

End Report - The Earth Orbital Outpost

(note: this storyt was inspired by Isaac Asimov's story "The Gentle Vultures" - 1957)

Monday, September 22, 2014

The continent of Antarctica (from Wikipedia) as it could appear after that the runaway greenhouse effect has caused the disappearance of the ice sheets. This image also shows the effects of sea level rise and of "isostatic rebound", that is the continental shelf rising up being freed from the weight of the ice. Antarctica was completely deglaciated up to about 50 million years ago and, at that time, it had a nearly tropical climate and hosted a variety of life. In a post-global warming age, it could become ice-free again and host human settlements for the first time in the earth's history. This is the subject of the novel titled "Queen of Antarctica"

In previous posts, I have been exploring the concept that narrative is a form of dealing with the future as legitimate as running models and solving differential equations, and perhaps even more so. One of the results this idea has been a complete "climate-fiction" novel that I wrote over the past summer, "Queen of Antarctica." It is not published, it may never be (this is the sad destiny of many novels). But I submitted it to a publisher and, who knows? It might even appear in print.

In case you are interested in this novel, I can tell you that it is an epic story set in a remote future, after the Great Hyperthermal; the runaway greenhouse effect coming after the climate "tipping point." In the novel, the Great Hyperthermal badly wrecks the earth's ecosystem, but does not kill off humankind - at least not completely. But the survivors must retreat to the extreme latitudes of the planet in order to find a climate that makes human life possible. The result is that two very different civilizations develop independently in the extreme North and in the extreme South of the earth. Some ten thousand years after the Great Hyperthermal, the earth's ecosystem shows signs of recovering and galleons from Greenland travel along the length of the Atlantic Ocean to land in Antarctica. A civilization clash ensues: the North is more advanced, technologically, while the South has a more advanced social structure, developed in order to survive the harsh conditions of a deglaciated Antarctica. It is not just a fight of armies, but the clash of two different ways of seeing the world. The fight starts and the initial victory may go to those who have the best weapons; but hope lies elsewhere.

I have been discussing this novel together with Jim Laughter, the author of another Cli-Fi novel, "Polar City Red". Here is the podcast made at the "Doomstead Diner."

Friday, September 19, 2014

In 1972, "The Limits to Growth" presented a set of scenarios for the future of humankind, which mostly involved decline and collapse of the world's economy. These scenarios were the result of solving a set of coupled differential equations and, for most people, the reasons for the predicted behavior of the economy remained obscure and imperscrutable. As a result, the results of the study were neither understood nor believed.

As I argued in a previous post, we tend to understand the world in narrative terms. We think in words, not in equations. And we tend to use words to arrange concepts as if they were actors playing on a stage. In the end, it is not a less legitimate way of modeling the world than using equations. So, I found in the blog of John Michael Greer (the "Archdruid") an exceeding lucid and compact description of the reasons why civilizations tend to collapse. And here it is: no equations, no graphs, but it couldn't be clearer than this.

The process that drives the collapse of
civilizations has a surprisingly simple basis: the mismatch between the
maintenance costs of capital and the resources that are available to meet those
costs. Capital here is meant in the broadest sense of the word, and includes
everything in which a civilization invests its wealth: buildings, roads,
imperial expansion, urban infrastructure, information resources, trained
personnel, or what have you. Capital of every kind has to be maintained, and as
a civilization adds to its stock of capital, the costs of maintenance rise
steadily, until the burden they place on the civilization’s available resources
can’t be supported any longer.

The only way to resolve that conflict is to allow some of
the capital to be converted to waste, so that its maintenance costs drop to
zero and any useful resources locked up in the capital can be put to other
uses. Human beings being what they are, the conversion of capital to waste
generally isn’t carried out in a calm, rational manner; instead, kingdoms fall,
cities get sacked, ruling elites are torn to pieces by howling mobs, and the
like. If a civilization depends on renewable resources, each round of capital
destruction is followed by a return to relative stability and the cycle begins
all over again; the history of imperial China is a good example of how that
works out in practice.

If a civilization depends on nonrenewable resources for
essential functions, though, destroying some of its capital yields only a brief
reprieve from the crisis of maintenance costs. Once the nonrenewable resource
base tips over into depletion, there’s less and less available each year
thereafter to meet the remaining maintenance costs, and the result is the
stairstep pattern of decline and fall so familiar from history:each crisis leads to a round of capital
destruction, which leads to renewed stability, which gives way to crisis as the
resource base drops further. Here again, human beings being what they are, this
process isn’t carried out in a calm, rational manner; the difference here is
simply that kingdoms keep falling, cities keep getting sacked, ruling elites
are slaughtered one after another in ever more inventive and colorful ways,
until finally contraction has proceeded far enough that the remaining capital
can be supported on the available stock of renewable resources.

Friday, September 12, 2014

Herman Melville never mentioned "peak whale oil" in his "Moby Dick", published in 1851. But the novel can be understood taking into account the fact that the American whaling industry was going through its production peak just during those years. We may consider "Moby Dick" as the greatest peak oil novel ever written.

In 1970, the United States went through their production peak for crude oil. Production reached a maximum then started a decline that has been lasting up to a few years ago. The peak was an epochal event, it was the "great U-turn" of the American economy, which ushered in a new era of larger social inequality and diffuse poverty.

But the reaction to the peak itself was a deafening silence. Earlier on, the peak had been discussed and extensively debated since the time when, in 1956, the geologist Marion King Hubbert had predicted it. When it arrived, however, the peak was not noticed, not discussed, not understood. It was a non-event, if there ever was one, at least in terms of public perception. The same was true for other important peaks: the British coal peak in the 1920s, the oil peak of the Soviet Union in 1988 and more. These peaks brought great changes in the world and were related to the fall of great empires. But they were not perceived. The same thing is happening with the global oil peak ("peak oil"): the closer we get to it, the less interested the public becomes.

There is a reason why these epochal events leave no trace in most people's perception. It is because we tend to see the world in narrative terms, not in terms of facts and data. We perceive only the things that generate an emotional reaction on us and in order to generate this reaction there must be a story, a narration. We could say that all narrative is about a quest for something; it is about succeeding against difficulties, it is about the transformations that occur because of dramatic events. It is this transformation that makes our mind resonate with the events described. We react to events because we perceive a narration, not because we read numbers written in a table. Think the other major problem of our times, climate change, carries a tremendous narrative potential; it is not just that it may bring dramatic events but because we feel something for our planet. We perceive the fact that we risk to destroy the earth's ecosystem and we feel something about it: it the narration of a dramatic event. It is for this reason that "climate fiction" ("cli-fi") is so much discussed today.

But how about "peak fiction"? Peak oil (or any production peak) is just a point on a smooth curve that started at zero and will unavoidably go to zero in the future. It may decline faster than it grew (the "Seneca effect") but it remains a smooth curve. And there is not so much drama involved: we already know (or should know) that, one day or another, we'll run out of all those things we consume and which cannot be replaced. So, what can we learn from something unavoidable? It is the same as dying of old age. We know it has to happen, someday, but dying of old age is not what novels are written about. Think of the "Iliad" if it were to tell us that Hector died in peace in his bed. Think of Tolkien's trilogy if it were to tell us that Frodo sold the ring in exchange for a retirement plan.

So, in narrative terms, we must see the peak indirectly, through its consequences and the story that these consequences tell. Think of "Moby Dick"; Herman Melville's novel, published in 1851. In it, you won't find any mention of the "whale oil peak." And yet, there was such a peak (as shown in the image) just during those years. Whales were efficiently exterminated to the point that their numbers started diminishing and, with them, also the production of whale oil. Eventually, the whale oil industry collapsed as a result of its own efficiency. The fact that whales were disappearing was not perceived by the whalers of the time and there is no evidence that they understood - or even imagined - the concept of "peak whaling". But the melancholy that pervades "Moby Dick" and its basic theme of an unattainable quest shows that Melville perceived that there was something deeply wrong with the whaling industry of the time.

The symbolism contained in "Moby Dick" has been described many times. Captain Ahab's ship, the "Pequod," has been correctly interpreted as "America" (or, more exactly, the United States) and the desperate quest for the white whale as a symbol of the desperate human quest for something unattainable. The symbolism of so long ago remains valid today if we replace "whale oil" with "crude oil." We would want oil to last forever; but that is as unattainable for us, just as killing the white whale was for Captain Ahab. And, just as the Pequod and its crew destroy themselves in their impossible chase, so it may happen to the ship which is America today, destroying itself in the desperate task of squeezing the last drops of oil from the earth's crust.

Maybe, one day, someone will write a novel which will reflect our plea for crude oil so perfectly - although indirectly - as "Moby Dick" did for whale oil in its times. If there will ever be such a novel, it will tell how we ended up in the terrible situation we find ourselves in, today. But it will never mention "peak oil" and not even crude oil as a source of energy; just as Melville never says in his novel what whale oil was used for.

Friday, September 5, 2014

Depletion is the true elephant in the living room of our age: it is a gigantic problem but it is rarely - if ever - recognized. Few people understand that depletion does NOT mean that we run out of anything. It means that producing a mineral commodity becomes so expensive that fewer and fewer people can afford it. It is happening with all mineral resources and, in this post, Steven Rocco reports about the situation in the gold mining industry. Clearly, we are not running out of gold, but with the cost of fuel increasing by a factor of five in ten years, you can't but wonder how the gold industry will be able to maintain the present production rates. (UB)

The gold mining industry literally devours
energy to produce an ounce of gold. In the past decade, fuel
consumption at the top gold miners more than doubled, but the actual
energy cost grew at a much higher rate.

The huge increase of diesel consumption at the top 5 gold miners is
due to several factors. As ore grades continue to decline, the gold
mining companies need to extract more ore to produce the same amount of
gold. Thus, the massive haul trucks that transport this ore burn more
diesel in the process.
Furthermore, as open-pit mines age, they deepen which forces the haul
trucks to travel longer distances at a higher grade. One of the
largest haul trucks in the world is the Caterpiller 797F. These haul
trucks are massive and can transport 400 metric tons of ore in a single
trip.

The CAT 797F has a standard 1,000 gallon tank and has options for a
1,500 and 2,000 gallon tank. The graphic below (from the Engineering
Network) provides some of the costs and statistics of the CAT 797:

…studies show tire costs can exceed 25% of total haul-truck operating costs per ton; and total
tire service and replacement costs over the useful service life of a
haul truck can exceed the original purchase price of the truck.

Basically, tires cost just as much or more than the haul truck
itself. That is an amazing statistic that just goes to show how
expensive it is to mine gold.
In addition, you will notice the CAT 797F has an excellent fuel
consumption rating of 0.3 miles per gallon…. which is a little more than
3 gallons per mile. To get an idea of how much more diesel the gold
mining industry consumes today, let’s look at the following chart.

Diesel consumption per ounce of gold produced more than doubled from
12.7 gallons per ounce in 2005 to 25.8 gallons per ounce in 2013. You
will notice that the diesel figures for 2012 and 2013 are the same. At
first I thought we would see an increase in 2013, but as companies
started cutting back on construction of new mines as well as
high-grading (extracting higher grade ore), consumption remained flat.

We must remember, these gold mining companies consume diesel in the
transportation of their waste rock and ore, mine construction and to a
lessor extent… electric generation when connecting to the grid is not
possible or economical.

Diesel consumption per ounce of gold produced increased in 2013 at
Barrick and Newmont, but fell at AngloGold, Goldfields and GoldCorp.
However, total diesel consumption in the group increased from 583
million gallons in 2012 to 591 million gallons in 2013. The reason the
gallons per ounce figure remained the same in 2013 as it was in 2012 was
due to an additional production of 300,000 oz of gold.

While the top 5 gold miners doubled their diesel consumption per
ounce of gold produced since 2005, their actual energy cost increased a
great deal more. The next chart reveals just how much these costs
increased.

In 2005, these gold miners spent an estimated $30.48 of diesel per
ounce of gold produced. This figure doubled by 2008 to $69.92 when the
price of a barrel of oil skyrocketed to $145. When the recession hit in
2009, causing the price of oil to plummet, diesel costs for the gold
miners declined as well.
Then over the next three years, diesel costs per ounce increased
significantly from an estimated $55.91 in 2010 to $102.43 in 2012. Even
though the figure in 2013 is slightly lower than 2012, costs have more
than tripled since 2005.

I estimated these figures by using the average annual price of diesel
stated by the EIA – The U.S. Energy Information Agency. Here is their
data table:

The price of gallon of diesel was $2.40 in 2005, hit a peak of $3.97
in 2012 and averaged $3.92 in 2013. So, not only have the gold miners
doubled their diesel consumption for each ounce of gold produced
(2005-2013), the price of diesel increased 63% during the same time
period.

Now, if we go back just a few more years and look at the rate of
change since 2003… its staggering. I don’t have the actual diesel
consumption figures for the top 5 gold miners for 2003, so here I
provided some estimates below:

2003-2013 Estimated Change In Diesel Consumption & Cost

2003 = 12 gallons per ounce (conservative estimate)

2003 = $1.51 price of gallon of diesel

2003 = $18.12 diesel cost per ounce

2013 = 25.8 gallons per ounce

2013 = $3.92 price of gallon of diesel

2013 = $101.14 diesel cost per ounce

What a difference a few years make…aye? Here we can see that the
price of diesel in 2003 ($1.51) was almost a Dollar less than it was in
2005 ($2.40). I was conservative and estimated that diesel consumption
declined to only 12 gallons per ounce in 2003 compared t0 12.8 gal/oz in
2005.

Thus, the actual estimated diesel costs per ounce increased more than
five times since 2003… actually 5.6 times. Which means, the top 5 gold
miners spent on average, $101 on diesel for every ounce they produced
in 2013 compared to $18 in 2003.

Even though this diesel cost figure only represents a small part of
the overall costs to mine gold, energy still represents the largest
factor in determining the value of gold. When I say that, it goes above
and beyond the additional sources of energy such as electricity a gold
mining company purchases when they process and refine gold.

It’s important to realize that all the mining equipment and materials
used in the gold industry are not produced out of THIN AIR in the same
way the Fed creates money. All the metals and products that go into
manufacturing mining equipment are only made possible by the huge
amounts of energy consumed in the process.

This is also true for the materials consumed at the mine. For
example, Barrick purchased 292,000 metric tons of lime in 2012 at its
mines. Lime is listed as a material cost on its balance sheet, but the
overwhelming factor to produce lime is calculated by the energy consumed
in all forms and all stages.

We must remember, lime is extracted by huge excavators and moved by
huge trucks which is then transported from the quarry to the mine by
more trucks. This all consumes a great deal of energy. Again, the
value of the lime used in the gold mining industry comes from the amount
of energy consumed in all forms and stages.

Lastly, we also need to consider all the human labor in all stages.
Lime isn’t extracted or transported by robots (not yet…LOL), but by
humans. Human labor is a form of energy. So, when a reader sends me an
email saying that labor is a higher cost than energy on a typical gold
company’s balance sheet, I politely respond by saying… HUMAN LABOR IS
ALSO A FORM OF ENERGY.
In conclusion, the gold mining industry consumes a lot of diesel to
produce an ounce of gold. As we can see, total diesel costs are rising
even faster. I am not concerned about the impact of increased diesel
costs on the gold mining industry in the following years. However, the
real threat to the industry will be a lack of available fuel supplies
in the future… not the energy cost.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

In fiction, it is allowed to extrapolate the consequences of normal phenomena to their extreme forms and to examine events that could happen, no matter how they are perceived as unlikely. Hence, the interest in "climate fiction" ("cli-fi") as a way to explore the possible consequences of climate change in situations much more extreme than those of the usually sanitized scenarios presented by scientists.

It seems that, so far, only a few of the many possible climate related catastrophes have been explored in detail in movies and novels. So, I have prepared here a list of ten apocalyptic scenarios, all related to climate change (of course, many more can be conceived). "Scenarios" and "fiction" are closely related concepts, except that the
latter doesn't necessarily have to follow the laws of physics. In this case, none of these scenarios is physically impossible; but they are stretched a bit (a lot) for increased fictional dramatic effects. The list may serve as a source of inspiration for those of us who are trying their hand at writing cli-fi novels. The scenarios are arranged in an approximate order of increasingly catastrophic events.

1. "The Great Coal Flame" (or "Saddam squared"). A giant coal fire which can't be extinguished. We all know how, in 1991, the Iraqi troops retreating from Kuwait dynamited some 700 oil wells, generating giant fires.
The damage generated was not terribly catastrophic and the fires could
be extinguished in less than one year, choking them at the mouth of the
wells. However, we can think of something more difficult to stop if we
imagine that the fire could affect a large coal deposit. There already
exist underground coal fires
which have burned for centuries and seem to be impossible to
extinguish. Let's imagine something much bigger, maybe as the result of a
tactical nuke landing by mistake (or purposefully) on a major coal
mine. The result would be a giant fire covering an enormous area; it
would be probably much more difficult to extinguish than the localized
oil well fires of Kuwait in 1991. Maybe this would not be a global disaster but, already now, uncontrolled coal fires account for about 3%
of the world's CO2 emissions; if a major coal mine were to catch fire,
the resulting disaster could considerably accelerate the process of climate change. To
say nothing of the damage generated in terms of ashes, sulfur oxides, mercury, and other poisonous chemicals.

2."Super-Calving." or "Heinrich's return". The rapid collapse into the sea of large amounts of ice.
"Calving" is a well known phenomenon in which large masses of ice
detach themselves from ice shelves and create icebergs. Normally, the
process causes no damage to humans (except for special cases, such as
for the "Titanic"). But imagine that very large chunks of ice were
released at a much faster rate than the present one. It has happened in the remote past in episodes known as "Heinrich's events" described a "Armadas of icebergs crossing the North Atlantic". The process could
disrupt navigation in areas near large ice sheets, such as near
Greenland and it could also generate giant waves - not tsunamis, but
large enough to cause damage at considerable distances. Then, the
presence of large amounts of ice floating in the ocean would have
significant effects on climate and on the oceanic thermohaline
circulation. The combination of these phenomena would disrupt commerce
and transportation in a vital area for the world's economy. Not really a worldwide disaster, but a big disaster anyway.

3."Hyperstorms" Giant storms wreaking disasters.
An increase in the frequency and the size of hurricanes is expected to
be a consequence of climate change. In some conditions, hurricanes could become truly enormous and in this case they would take the name of "hypercanes", continent-size super-storms which reach the stratosphere, with side effects such as destroying the protective ozone layer. Because of this effect, it has been speculated that some of the past mega-extinctions were due to hypercanes. It is believed that sea surface temperatures high enough to create hypercanes can be generated only by
exceptional circumstances, such as by asteroidal impacts. However, it
is not impossible that a combination of factors related to global
warming could generate larger and larger storms. Now, already in the
present conditions, hurricanes are a major destructive
force on human-built structures, imagine something much bigger and even
more destructive..... The damage would be mostly local, unless we manage to unchain a true hyperncane which would create worldwide havoc by destroying the world's ozone layer.

4. "The great ring of ice disaster".The melting of the Northern ice sheets generates earthquakes and tsunamis. The "ring of ice"
is a region which encompasses a number of geological faults in the
Northern Hemisphere. This is already a volcanic active region, but the
melting and the Greenland ice sheet would generate further
instabilities. Greenland "floats" over the underlying semi-fluid mantle
and would rise up when freed of the mass of ice that covers it (this is
called "isostatic rebound").
The result would be the destabilization of the geological faults in the
area: an increase in volcanism, earthquakes, large coastal landslides,
and perhaps the sudden release of large amounts of methane from frozen
hydrates. The most disastrous results would be Atlantic tsunamis, a
phenomenon which so far has been very rare, but
that would be enhanced and made more common by climate change. Tsunamis
originating in Greenland could hit especially hard Scotland, Norway,
and Ireland, but also the Northwestern continental European coast
(Holland, in particular) disrupting or destroying an industrial and
commercial hub fundamental for the whole Europe. That would surely have worldwide repercussions.

5. "The Big Freeze" (or: "the Younger Dryas reloaded"). A rapid cooling, something of the order of −5 °C (23 °F) of the Northern hemisphere. The tumbling into the ocean of the Greenland ice sheet could shut down the North-Atlantic thermoaline circulation. As we have seen in the movie "The day after tomorrow,"
that would generate a rapid cooling of the Northern hemisphere. It is
believed that something similar has already occurred during the period
called the "Younger Dryas", around 12,000 years ago; probably caused by the sudden release into the Atlantic of the cold water of a lake ("Lake Agassiz") when the ice dam that kept it locked in place gave way. (yes, it is the plot of the second film of "the ice age"
series, the one titled "The Meltdown"). In the case of the Younger
Dryas, the freeze appears to have taken place in a few years. Imagine if
something similar were to happen today: the consequences would be,
well, unimaginable, even if we were to assume that they would affect
only the Northern Hemisphere.

6. "The great sea onrush"The sea rise generated by the rapid melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets wipes out most of the coastal cities and infrastructures. The disappearance of the ice sheets of Greenland and of Antarctica is not so much a hypothesis as a virtual certainty, given the present trends. That would lead to a sea level rise of some 7 meters (24 feet) from Greenland alone, plus about 3 meters from West Antarctica, and further contribution from the slower melting of other ice sheets. However, it is normally believed that this event would unfold in centuries or millennia and that humans would have time to adapt (perhaps). After all, as it is often said, what is affected by the sea rise "is only real estate". But let's imagine that the process were much, much faster - taking place in a few decades or even less at least for one of the two most unstable ice sheets in the world: Greenland and West Antarctica. You would not see the onrush of giant waves submerging coastal cities, as in the "2012" movie, but the sea rise would still be so fast that there would be no time to build levees or to relocate buildings and
facilities inland. The result would be a frantic rush inland, while vital industrial and transportation infrastructure would have to be abandoned. A true global disaster.

7. "Tickling the tail of the dragon" (or: "Shooting yourself with the clatrhate gun"). A giant, human caused methane releaseand the consequent rapid rise in temperature. Let's imagine that some well intentioned people try to solve the energy crisis by extracting methane from buried hydrates (or clathrates) at the bottom of the ocean. Now, imagine that by drilling inside these clathrate reservoirs triggers a self-reinforcing release phenomenon. Just like BP didn't know how to stop the Macondo well leakage, the companies drilling - say - in the Arctic ocean, would discover that they don't know how to plug the hole they have drilled and that, even if they could, more and more holes are appearing by themselves. The result is a massive release of methane in the atmosphere, a greenhouse gas much more powerful than carbon dioxide. As a consequence, the "worst case" IPCC scenarios unfold in a few years instead of a century. The results? Well, possibly all the four previous scenarios: collapse of the ice sheets, oceanic thermohaline shutdown and all the dire consequences. But also extensive climate disruption and the desertification of temperate region. You wouldn't speak anymore of "drought in California" for the same reasons why you don't normally speak of "drought in the Sahara desert". California would become like the Sahara desert (and not just California). Totally global disaster.

8. "Goldilock's disasters" or "The great climate rebound". Geoengineering can backfire. We can imagine multiple disasters arising from well intentioned but ill conceived efforts to reduce global warming. Spraying particulate in the upper atmosphere, or maybe putting giant mirrors in orbit, would cool the earth, but we don't know how it would affect the weather patterns. For instance, it could weaken the Indian Ocean monsoon and condemn at least a billion of people to starvation. Or, one could go too far in the opposite direction and cool the planet too much, (too much of a good thing) with effects similar to those of a nuclear winter. Finally, imagine that a major economic crisis defunds the geoengineering effort. Or, imagine that a major spin campaign convinces people that it was a hoax or useless (that's possibly the most realistic element of this scenario). Then, as the sunscreens fall, the earth returns to warming with a vengeance, as it would do after a nuclear winter and temperatures shot up so fast that, before screening can be resumed, it is too late. And that's truly global!

9. "The world as a giant gas chamber". What if CO2 turns out to be not so harmless as it is commonly believed? CO2 is often defined as "plant food" and it is believed that it cannot negatively affect human health until it reaches concentrations over at least 10 times the present values. However, it is also true that our species evolved in conditions of CO2 atmospheric concentrations below 300 ppm and that the present concentrations of 400 ppm have never been experienced by our ancestors. As the concentration of atmospheric CO2 keeps building up, we could reach concentrations four of five times larger than those which have been the rule for the past million years or so. CO2 is a reactive molecule which, among other things, would affect the blood pH and it has been argued that concentrations over 425 ppm would already have negative effects on human health; to say nothing of much higher values. So, if we discover that we have transformed the planet into a giant gas chamber, what would we do?

10 "Venus, the ultimate disaster." Temperatures could go up high enough to kill everything. The "Venus Scenario" is an extreme version of the "runaway greenhouse" effect. As temperatures go up, more and more water vapor is pumped into the atmosphere. Since water vapor is a greenhouse gas, it causes further warming of the atmosphere. At its extreme limit, the process could self-reinforce to the point that the oceans would completely evaporate. Temperatures could become so high that carbonates in the crust would be decomposed and that would create a dense atmosphere saturated with CO2. Add some sulfuric acid generated by volcanoes and you have transformed Earth into something very similar to Venus. Temperatures would reach several hundred degrees C at the surface; no liquid water, no life. Right now, the solar radiation arriving on the earth is believed to be not high enough to generate the kind of feedback that would transform earth into a twin of Venus. But there are always uncertainties in these calculations and the "Venus scenario" cannot be completely ruled out. The only escape from the Venus catastrophe would be leaving Earth for another planet, supposing that humans were able to build spaceships early enough. This is, clearly, the ultimate catastrophe: the sterilization of the whole planet.

Who

Ugo Bardi is a member of the Club of Rome and the author of "Extracted: how the quest for mineral resources is plundering the Planet" (Chelsea Green 2014). His most recent book is "The Seneca Effect" to be published by Springer in mid 2017

Listen! for no more the presage of my soul, Bride-like, shall peer from its secluding veil; But as the morning wind blows clear the east,More bright shall blow the wind of prophecy,And I will speak, but in dark speech no more.(Aeschylus, Agamemnon)

Ugo Bardi's blog

This blog is dedicated to exploring the future of humankind, affected by the decline of the availability of natural resources, the climate problem, and the human tendency of mismanaging both. The future doesn't look bright, but it is still possible to do something good if we don't discount the alerts of the modern Cassandras. (and don't forget that the ancient prophetess turned out to be always right).

Above: Cassandra by Evelyn De Morgan, 1898

Chimeras: another blog by UB

Dedicated to art, myths, literature, and history with a special attention to ancient monsters and deities.

The Seneca Effect

The Seneca Effect: is this what our future looks like?

Extracted

A report to the Club of Rome published by Chelsea Green. (click on image for a link)

Rules of the blog

I try to publish at least a post every week, typically on Mondays, but additional posts often appear on different days. Comments are moderated. You may reproduce my posts as you like, citing the source is appreciated!

About the author

Ugo Bardi teaches physical chemistry at the University of Florence, in Italy. He is interested in resource depletion, system dynamics modeling, climate science and renewable energy. Contact: ugo.bardi(whirlything)unifi.it